dontkickducks
Hi,
Good of you to ask advice when recognising you experience problems. I'm not a professional cook, but I can cook well enough for it to be okay for other people. The problem in this case being that I learned by doing, trial and error and over a period of 15+ years now. Which means I can't give steps to follow or the advice that will trigger improvement. Since I don't know what your knowledge or experience entails, I'll share the broadest of advice. (Even though NT people would find it too basic and might get offended. This is not my intention and I hope you will ignore every part which you deem redundant )
- Cutting, preparing, gattering ingredients etc. takes time. If something is already cooking/boiling it will not pause and wait for you. Even though it's hard as you've already shared with us, try to read a recipe ahead of cooking, gather as much of the necesseities close by where you can find them, and wash and cut the ingredients before you start heating some other part of the meal. I'm notoriously slow in preparing too cook. I have burned or overcooked many meals by underestimating how long I need to look for or cut other ingredients. This rule of not turning on the stove untill after having prepared most of the things has helped me.
- Not everything has the same preperation time. "To start cooking" isn't the same thing as "putting everything on the stove around the same time". If potatoes need 14 minutes to cook, but a thin piece of meat will be ready in 5 minutes, start with boiling the potatoes for 8-9minutes and then start cooking the meat. If both start at the same time the meat will either burn for cooking too long or risk getting cold or chewy for being done too early. It's better when most things are done relatively at the same time.
- As you said cutting can be hard. Know that the size of things impacts how long they need to cook/boil. Generally a larger chunk needs to be cooked longer to be done. So when cutting, try to have all the parts of your ingredient roughly the same size. Most of the times this means don't have one part which is twice or more the size of another part. If it is cut it again. If things are not twice as big it often counts as close enough for the means of cooking.
- It's okay and possible to check if something is done while cooking! For boiling potatoes or vegetables you can prick them with a fork. Just like on your plate, you want to feel it's not too hard. If it is too hard, cook for longer. If it's not, this ingredient is done. Some things like meats you can cut open to see if it's still raw on the inside.
To summarize, a.k.a. TL;DR:
- don't start cooking one ingredient untill you have prepared (gathered/washed/cut) ALL ingredients
- don't put everything on the stove at the same time (if it has different preparation times)
- test while cooking
I hope you can find a bit of use in some of this advice.
My go too recipe is cooking (not boiling) garlic, onion, bell pepper and another vegatable in a pan (wok?). Depending on spices or sauce I serve it with rice, noodles/ramen or pasta. "Another vegetable" can change per day too switch things up and not eat the same thing everyday. I love zucchini (though dislike the English word for it), celery and/or carrots as the extra vegetable. But anything can work!
Also, I've found a funny cookbook which may help. It's full of dark humour. Not to be taken too seriously, but it has helped me with the confidence too cook what I need. The premise of the book is "you need to eat something, otherwise you die" and it acknowledges that cooking can be a hassle and can cost a lot of energy. I'll look up the pdf and edit this or add an extra comment.
Yay, duck safety
My friends suicide. His life has shaped my life in many ways. His death even more so. 10 years this month.
My absolute favourite is Spirit Island. A co-op game where you work together defending your island and kicking out explorers and settlers. Expanding your presence and getting new powers along the way. Every game with new combinations.
When we got the game we played this more than once every week for over a year. With each game taking 1-3hours with our playstyle. Sometimes longer with four players (but that's partly because of not actively playing the game then). We play less now only because of moving with the renovation taking too much time.
Before I sit down on the toilet, I take a piece of toilet paper en wipe the brim. Not that it makes that much of a difference of how clean the brim is. But since doing that I ALWAYS notice if the roll's nearly empty. It's just the heads up you need to check stock and fix a new one before it's too late.
I really like Spirit Island. It's a grest game and the art style really adds to it as well. It really adds to my imagination not only to read the cards powers but to see the detail in the tiny art box on every card.
Early 00's I used to listen to my brothers playlist on Windows Media Player. One of the songs was a gloomy/trance(?) remix of classical music. He had named it (something) Beethoven mix.
On multiple occasions I tried searching for it. Both the mix and the original song to make the search easier. But since I'm not at home with classical music I couldn't figure out either of them. Not sure if it even was one of Beethovens pieces.
Jack Black. Inspires people to do what they love. Really knows how to gave fun and doesn't care if people think it's weird. And despite a lot of banal poop, penis, sex humour in the Tenacious D songs, they changed some lyrics in live shows to swap genders. Great example of nonchelant emancipation and equality.
This is the funny cookbook. The author made it free to download. https://traumbooks.itch.io/the-sad-bastard-cookbook